EFSA under Revision: Transparency and Sustainability in the Food Chain

In a time of structural challenges to the integrity, validity, and reliability of science, the new Regulation 2019/1381 aims to rethink the risk assessment phase for greater transparency and sustainability in the food chain. The novel set of provisions calls, inter alia, for Member States’ and civil society’s involvement in the management structure and scientific panels of the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA). Using the European process of ‘agencification’ as a theoretical background, this analysis addresses which problems the reformed legal framework aims to solve as regards EFSA’s governance and which new questions it simultaneously brings to the forefront.